STARDEX Team Narrow Down
Impact Of Global Warming On Specific Regions

SPX 24nov2005

Norwich UK — People will soon be able to find out how vulnerable their own
local area is to global warming, thanks to new techniques developed by members
of the STARDEX project.

The STARDEX project's seven European research teams, led by the University of
East Anglia, narrowed down evidence of changing weather patterns to predict the
occurrence of floods, heat waves and drought on even smaller regions across the
UK and Europe.

And the new method of analysis could help governments prepare for or even
prevent a predicted increase in flooding by up to 50 per cent in certain areas
of the River Rhine and by 25 per cent in areas such as north-west England by the
end of the century.

The European Union-funded project brought together expertise from across
Europe to study the complex impacts of regional climate change.

Its report is published as United Nations leaders gather in Montreal, Canada,
next week (November 28 to December 9) for the UN climate change conference to
discuss the Kyoto Protocol and the impact of climate change.

In the past climate change analysts have only been able to predict the impact
of global warming on temperature and rainfall by examining the output of global
climate models every 250 km. This large scale analysis meant that temperature
and rainfall trends were averaged out resulting in generalizations about the
impact of climate change on local regions.

The STARDEX project was the first European-wide study to apply a large
variety of the best statistical and modeling techniques to determine the likely
impact of climate change at specific sites. Termed downscaling, these techniques
give a much better idea of possible changes in temperature and rainfall at the
local scale.

The research groups used observed station data for six case study regions
across Europe and a specially constructed dataset of 491 European wide daily
station records to analyse climate trends over the past 40 years and likely
changes at the end of the 21st century.

The UK based teams' report reveals that by 2100 south-east and north-west
England will see up to 25 per cent increase in heavy rainfall during five-day
periods in winter -which leads to flooding - and up to 25 per cent decrease in
rainfall in summer causing drought.

And these new statistics will help determine the chance of extreme weather in
certain areas, taking into account local topography, enabling local populations
to prepare for and even prevent disasters such as flooding and drought. At
present at least five million people live in areas with a high risk of flooding
in England and Wales.

The STARDEX report concludes that there is a need to develop even more
efficient techniques to enable scientists to predict local impact. This work has
already started as part of the ENSEMBLES integrated project which aims to
further understand and reduce uncertainties in climate change predictions.

Dr Clare Goodess, of UEA's Climatic Research Unit and STARDEX project
coordinator, said: "The STARDEX projections quantify the changes in the
frequency and magnitude of extreme weather events that can be expected in
individual European cities and regions if no action is taken to reduce
human-induced global warming. The prospect of increased winter flooding will be
alarming to inhabitants of cities such as Carlisle in NW England and Cologne in
Germany with recent personal experience of the damage and disruption that such
events cause."

"Although more research is needed to increase our confidence in
projections of summer rainfall, we are sufficiently confident in the projected
increased risks of flooding, drought and heatwaves to believe that the need for
action on climate change is more urgent than ever before," added Dr
Goodess.

European Case Studies

German Rhine: Significant increases in temperature extremes are
expected by the end of the 21st century with more severe increases in summer
accompanied by higher year to year variability. The magnitude and frequency of
occurrence of heavy rainfall in winter is expected to rise in parts of the
German Rhine Basin by 40 to 50 per cent by the end of 21st century.

Emilia Romagna: Significant increases are projected in temperature
during winter, spring and autumn with resulting increase in heat waves and
drought periods especially in autumn. The number of frost days is projected to
decrease.

Greece: Temperature means and extremes are projected to increase. An
increase in rainfall is projected for winter in central continental Greece and
in part of the Aegean Sea.

Iberian peninsula: For western Iberia the temperature in summer is
expected to increase with the number of frost days decreasing.